Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

5th February, 1939

Disciple : In the Life of Nivedita which Lizelle is writing, she has found many letters, in one of which she mentions that you gave her charge of editing, Vande Mataram, after you left Calcutta.

 Sri Aurobindo : No. I was the Karma Yogin – not Vande Mataram, I saw her before I left Calcutta for Chandernagore. It was from her that I got the news of my contemplated arrest. Then I wrote an article "My Political Will" – that stopped the arrest.

Disciple : It seems, she traveled to India once under assumed name to evade arrest in 1910 or 1911.

Sri Aurobindo : She died at Darjeeling; she did not die under assumed name.

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(The topic turned to Jainism)

Sri Aurobindo : We were talking about the Tapasya yesterday. Is it not to transcend nature and conquer that they do those violent Tapasyas and not from an idea of illusion?

Disciple : Perhaps that was the idea.

Sri Aurobindo : Then their aim is the same as ours, only the method is different.

Disciple : That does not solve Lajpat Rai's idea of illusion of all action.

Sri Aurobindo : No, the idea may have been in his blood or perhaps atmosphere of the Indian place. When I was reading Max Mullars' translation of the Vedanta in London I came upon the idea of 'Self' and I decided that Vedanta is something to be realized in life. Before that I was an atheist and agnostic. How do you explain that? You can't say that it was the atmosphere of the place. It was in the blood or perhaps carried from past life. Then there was the experience when I came to India :  as soon as I set my foot on Apollo Bunder, I felt a vastness and a tremendous calm coming over me. I did not know, of course, that it was an experience. It was a sense of calm and vastness pervading everywhere and I had not got it in the steamer. That is the atmosphere of the place.

Another instance is the sense of the Infinite I had at the Shankeracharya Hill at Kashmir and at Parvati Hill near Poona, and the reality of the image in a temple at Karnali near Chandod.

Disciple : I asked X why the Jews are so much persecuted in Germany. He said that they were a rich minority and so they were made the scapegoat. He said, the same thing

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happened in France against the aristocracy during the revolution, and in Spain against the clergy.

Sri Aurobindo : Regarding France, the revolution was not particularly against the aristocracy; it was against all history of the past. And in Spain, it was against the past repression of the Church.

Disciple : I asked Mrs. X about conditions in Switzerland. She says, the country is passing through a critical time. She is afraid of a passage through her territory during war. During the last world war also they passed some anxious days. They were relieved when Belgium was made the route. The dictators may decide to take route through Switzerland. If they attack the Italian and German speaking Canton then the French speaking Cantons would be in difficulty.

Sri Aurobindo : It is said that Czechoslovakian frontier was so strongly fortified that Germany would have found it difficult to take it.

Disciple : It is a pity they gave in without fight. But now Hitler is asking equivalent colonies.

Sri Aurobindo : From whom? Where?

Disciple : From Belgium, Holland and Portugal.

Sri Aurobindo : Holland has no Colonies in Africa. Portuguese Colonies in Africa are small and Hitler would hardly be satisfied with them. Belgian Congo is big, but England would not dare to do anything with it, for that will make Belgium furious and she may side with Germany. England could not allow that, for if Germany takes possession of Antwerp, it will be a pistol at the heart of England.

 (Turning to Disciple) :  

 "Roosevelt seems to have backed out." Now he says :  

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America has nothing to do with European problems.

Disciple : What do you think about Subhas's statement?

Sri Aurobindo : "The Hindu" has given a fitting reply; either he meant something or meant nothing by his declaration.

Disciple : The Socialists in a recent meeting at Bombay began to shout and continued shouting. Shouting is quite constitutional with them (laughter).

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